Literary Reporting?

What do you suppose they mean by that?

MATTHEW POWER LITERARY REPORTING AWARD
http://applications.nyujournalism.org/matthew-power-literary-reporting-award/


NO ENTRY FEE.


Deadline February 16, 2015. $6,000 upon announcement of the winning proposal; $3,000 upon evidence of substantial progress; and $3,500 upon completion and acceptance by the Award committee. NYU ID and full online and onsite NYU Bobst Library research and reference privileges. Space allowing, an office at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, with WiFi. On completion, the author may be asked to present the work to the NYU journalism community in a mutually agreeable format.


It does sound kind of cool.

In other news ...

My Twitter handle (or "Twitness" as I prefer to call it) is @ShayneLaughter.

I have investigated www.twitterfeed.com, an app which allows your blog posts to go directly to Twitter.  I, being a spectacularly lazy blogger, would rather have something that posts my re-tweets on my blog.  Then I could fill the blogosphere with bon mots from the Paris Review, LA Review of Books, and other Lit-Twits.

Now that I've thought of it and said it out loud-ish on the Net, I'll just settle back in my lawn chair and wait for somebody to come up with the algorithm.  Send the check to my PayPal account, please.

And yes, I know I promised you more Spain pix.  Soon.

Days in a Warm Place, Part 2

In less than a day, it will be the final month of 2014.  These pictures are precious memories of July, in residence at Can Serrat, an hour outside Barcelona, in the foothills of the Montserrat mountain range.

Right this way ... my new friend Jacqui and I got off the bus from Barcelona and walked down a steep gravel road dragging our wheeled luggage ...

This view assured us it was all worth it.

Up the driveway ...

We come in peace, dude.

Loggia inside the estate walls. Henri the handyman would strap a full trash can to his back every day and ride the ATV up a steep hill to a trash bin in the little town of El Bruc.

The inside dining room.  We nearly always ate outside under a grape arbor, at a huge stone table. Which I did not take any pictures of, dammit.

The large studio. Several painters and sculptors could work in here together.

The small studio, big enough for two artists. That's Henri the handyman, shirtless as usual.

The writing room. A library of books from around the world, plus desks, deep couches & chairs & a couple of beds.

My room. I shared with 2 other women. The bed in the foreground is a sort of extra sofa-like bit of furniture. The open clothes rack was my "closet," because the 2 roomies used an enormous antique wardrobe. That arch beside the balcony french doors is the entrance to ...

My little cell. About 5x7, just enough for the bed and the side table. I grabbed it because it was a private space. The other two women shared a larger niche on the other side of a wall.

I really came to appreciate the mass of the stone walls, for quiet and coolness on summer nights.

More in the next post!

Days in a Warm Place

I know I left you all hanging back in June with just a couple hundred dollars to go in my crowdfunding campaign.  Bad blogger, bad! bad! blogger!

So anyway, I made it to goal and a smidge beyond. I had a grand adventure in Spain. I finished the short story I had thought I would just get outlined. I made awesome friends. I realllllllly didn't want to come back.

Here are pictures to prove it!

Cathedral in Barcelona.

Old City side street in Barcelona.

Poster for a poetry festival -- "Poetry Please!"

Barcelona rents bikes.

Oh, Gaudi, you wild and crazy guy!

Palau Musica de Catalan, OMGYOUGUYSTHISISAWESOMELOOKLOOKLOOK

Ceiling of the concert hall ...

It's got a winged horse, even!

That's a tree carved in stone, underneath the stained-glass central skylight.

Valkyries!

The snack bar in the lobby ain't shabby, either.

All-around amazing craftwork from the turn of the 20th century. "Modernisme" in Catalunya was called "Art Nouveau" in France and ""Arts & Crafts" in England.

Then I went to the country. Next post!

A Marketing Ploy, Mmmmuuuwwwaaahahahahahaha ...

Yü: A Ross Lamos Mystery is now being promoted on Twitter by #Whizzbuzz, at http://fb.me/1NzLkhHE3  !

My own Twitness is ShayneLaughter.  Let's follow ...

Just $525 to Go!

My crowdfunding campaign has had a silent spring. My Mother (Elmer Smith’s daughter Marjorie)

 decided in January to take a small independent apartment in a nice senior community, so she could have more of a social life and not be hogtied by the weather. Six weeks after her decision – bam, she was moved in, perfectly organized and quite satisfied (after the usual hassles with Comcast and AT&T, naturally).

So, I am re-settled by myself in the condo, furniture moved and rooms rearranged … and ye gods, time has moved on!

I have just $525 left to raise to meet the $1,300 goal for my summer trip to Can Serrat, the artists’ residence estate outside of Barcelona, Spain, to work on the Papaw Project. I’ve extended the campaign to June 15 – and for anyone who wants to donate again, I have new story gifts for you!

A second donation of up to $10 means you’re a VALENTINE – and you get a .pdf of my award-winning short story, “The Valentine.” This story was published in the 2013 Bacopa Literary Review and was the Second-Place Winner in their annual fiction contest.

A second donation of $11- $50 means you’re IN MOONLIT BONG – and you get two short-short stories that were published in the online creative-life magazine Rebelle Society: “In Moonlit Bong” and “Not the Enemies You’re Looking For.”

A second donation of $51-100 means you are a SWEETIE – and you get a SNEAK PREVIEW of the Second Ross Lamos Mystery, still in progress! 

All my thanks and praise to those who have donated already. I hope you have enjoyed the stories of the Papaw Project! 

The story that will cap the collection is being enriched by my reading the wartime “ordinary soldier” accounts by Ernie Pyle: "Here Is Your War" and "Brave Men." I am also digging (ha!) into the history of the interstate highway system and methods of urban sanitation in the 1930s. Stay tuned!

Yeesh, has it really been SEVEN months since I last posted? Bad Me!

 

Well, it's Arctic Freeze Day here in Bloomington, IN, so I'm home taking care of bidness while wearing3 layers.

 

News from September 2013 that has had me grinning ever since: I am going to Can Serrat artists' retreat on a supported residency for a full month ... next July ... near BARCELONA!

 Will be working on my "Papaw" story collection and - yes! - the second Ross Lamos Mystery!

 

Plans for travel are shaping up -- I have a travel companion for the trip out, including some tourist time in Madrid and Barcelona that we hope will include literary cafes and open mics!

Among the Madrid plans are a meetup with the Rebelle Society co-founder Andrea Balt. I recommend a trip to www.rebellesociety.com, for inspiration and dream-enhancement.

If you prefer tangible dreamstuff, "The Best of Rebelle Society, Vol. 1" is now on sale at Amazon's Create Space.  I've got mine, and it's delicious.

I started and finished a new story in one evening this past week - a great beginning to a year of writing!

And how are you?